


far away, find us in the future

by orphan_account



Category: Little Mix (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Girl Direction, fangirl louis, i mean sixth form but, little mix as an indie band
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 11:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17548787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Louis has the chance to meet her favourite band, but there's one small problem. She's single.





	far away, find us in the future

**Author's Note:**

> The start of this has been sitting in my google docs since August so really I just want to get out this small part as the first chapter to see if people are interested! Title from Tom Rosenthal's Going to be Wonderful. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr  
> [here](http://greenhousegf.tumblr.com/)  
> [rebloggable fic post here](http://greenhousegf.tumblr.com/post/182315554094/far-away-find-us-in-the-future-louis-has-the)

 

Louis slams her hands down on the table as she takes a seat next to Liam, causing her to look up from her phone in a jolt, hand tightening protectively around her coffee cup. She draws it closer to her body, eyes narrowing in suspicion at the way Louis’ legs are practically vibrating under the bench. 

 

Louis scrunches up her nose as she pokes her tongue out in retaliation and proceeds to start a drum roll where her hands are still resting on the table. 

 

The new noise is enough to make Zayn sigh exaggeratedly and put her pen down from where she seems to be filling in a worksheet. 

 

Everyone that Louis is friends with maintains that one of the more annoying habits of hers (although it must be noted that her friends all agree that any habit of hers is inherently going to be annoying) is her tendency to start a drum roll on the nearest surface whenever she has news to share. 

 

Zayn steeples her hands and rests her chin on them, directing a serious look at Louis. Anyone who didn’t know her would think someone had died, with the way she went from annoyed to earnestly empathetic in zero seconds flat, but Niall’s barely concealed snort from where she looks on says it all. 

 

“What is it, Lou?” Zayn’s sarcastic puppy dog eyes are joined by her reaching out to hold Louis’ hand in a faux comforting gesture, rings glinting in the cafeteria light. 

 

At her question, Louis can’t fight the grin that threatens to split her face in two. 

 

“Jesus, I think she might combust.” Niall pipes up, now also abandoning her geography coursework to watch her. 

 

“Have you seen Little Mix’s latest tweet?” 

 

“Have I seen Little Mix’s latest tweet?” Zayn repeats back to her, deadpan. 

 

“Zayn.”

 

“Why would  _ I _ follow the indie band that  _ you’re  _ obsessed with, on  _ any  _ social media?”

 

“Because I need someone to get excited with me when they do something?” She turns to Liam. “Liam. You’re always talking about how important it is to support each other. Have you supported me by keeping up with my interests?” 

 

“Louis, you know I’m on a social media ban at the moment, I can’t afford to fail another maths mock this close to A Levels. Sorry, mate.”Luckily for her livelihood, Liam looks genuinely apologetic and Louis can find it in her heart to forgive her. Even if it’s only because she has been on the recipient of many late-night phone calls about Liam’s uni worries. Sometimes Louis wishes she could just whack a plaster onto all her friend’s self-doubts that seem to be rising their heads as they approach their exams. 

 

“I forgive you, Li.” Louis says sweetly before adopting an accusatory tone. “The same cannot be said for you two, unfortunately” She turns a scowl onto where Zayn and Niall sit, bored and sheepish respectively. 

 

“Why don’t you wait until H gets here, Lou?” Niall pipes up cheerfully. “I’m sure she’s seen whatever new music video or tour date has been released!”

 

“You guys don’t understand!” Louis whines. “This is so much bigger than  _ just  _ a music video!”

 

They really don’t. Louis has been a religious follower of all things Little Mix ever since she stumbled upon their eclectic music in an _Indie Acoustic Chill_ 8tracks playlist she listened to in year eight. She can talk for hours about how the members all have distinctive stylistic choices in their vocals, or how Perrie and Leigh-Anne’s individualistic ways of playing their guitar somehow always work incredibly together, never ceasing to amaze Louis. 

 

Somehow, despite having listened to them for coming up to five years now, the rest of the world hasn’t particularly caught onto their genius. They still only have about 300,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, which does sound like a lot to Louis, but she guesses that compared to Niall’s favourite band which has ten million, it’s really not very much at all.  

 

The upside of them having such a small fan base, however, is that they almost always interact with people that tweet them and they always like Instagram comments. It never fails to make Louis giddy when she gets a notification that the mindless praise she tends to comment has been liked, even though it happens every single time. 

 

So, all in all, the tweet that woke Louis up this morning was really not that surprising. 

 

_ “We’re looking for couples to star in our new music video! We want to show that love comes in all different forms and we need your help! Check the link in our bio for how to get involved,” _ Niall reads out loud. She puts her phone down on the table and looks at Louis with a confused expression on her face.

 

“But Louis… why are you so excited about this? You’re  _ painfully  _ single, or have you forgotten?” 

 

“Yes, thank you, Niall.”  

 

“Why are we thanking Niall today?” 

 

Harry plops down next to Louis, across from Niall. For a quick moment, Louis allows herself the luxury of cataloguing the way the collar of her flowy blouse flutters against her neck as she moves and the curl of the loose hairs that have fallen down from her bun. 

 

“Because Louis’ single.” 

 

Harry barely squints at Niall for a second before her eyes are widening in realisation. Louis has to quickly suppress a smile that creeps up on her instinctively, at how in tune Harry is with her. She’s one step ahead of Louis, almost always, sometimes even knowing what Louis’ thinking before she herself even realises it. 

 

She turns towards Louis, brows pulled taught with a pout. This is why she likes Harry more than Zayn, she thinks, because Harry is genuinely sympathetic and actually cares about Louis’ horrible, terrible predicaments. 

 

“I’m sorry Lou, I know you would’ve loved to meet them.” 

 

Louis almost feels bad shrugging off her earnestly understanding gaze and knows that her friends are likely at a loss as to why she isn’t bawling at this missed opportunity. 

 

“Ladies. Don’t even worry.” She breaks out in a mischievous grin. “I have a plan.”

 

Next to her, Liam sends a glance skywards, likely praying for their lives. Louis resolutely ignores her. 

 

“I may be single,” Louis announces. “But they don’t know that, do they?”

 

She’s met by three blank stares and a vaguely concerned glance from Liam. 

 

“I don’t follow.” Zayn’s voice is flat, and she’s staring at Louis like she just announced she was happily engaged to the Queen of England. 

 

“If only,” Louis starts, her voice syrupy sweet, “I had a lovely set of beautiful friends, one of whom wouldn’t mind coming with me on a weekend trip to visit my favourite band. My favourite band, whom I love and adore, the band that I would die for. If only one of my friends cared enough about my interests and wellbeing to come with  _ me  _ on a trip like that.” 

 

“I am  _ not _ pretending to date you, Louis. No one would believe we were together anyway.” 

 

“Ouch Zayn. I’m not gonna pretend that didn’t hurt.” Louis dramatically puts her hand to her chest, slumping against Liam who shoves her off with an eye roll. “Why not? We could be in love.”

 

“Sorry, Lou.” She shrugs, skipping over the question altogether.

 

Louis sends a sickening smile to Niall. Niall would help her, Louis thought, and she was a right laugh. A trip with Niall to see her favourite band would be a hell of a weekend. 

 

“Niall, light of my life, mother of my child -”

 

“Alright, chill out, mate. I thought this was just a fake relationship situation. I want no part of it if there are kids involved.”

 

Louis snorts at the sarcastic disgust in Niall’s eyes. She leans over and grabs Liam’s now empty coffee cup and lobs it at her head. This results in a responding missile from Niall - a rubber in the shape of a tiny burger - which hits Louis square in the forehead. 

 

At the interruption of their childish banter, the table breaks into other conversation. Liam stretches to kick Niall in the ankle and asks her if she wants an extra pair of eyes to go over the paragraph in her geography coursework. The help is gratefully accepted, with Niall mumbling that she’s been stuck on it since the period before Louis came and sat down. 

 

“Lou, you know I’d help you if you’re being serious.” Harry’s tentative voice breaks through the chatter of the cafeteria.

 

Louis turns her head to her left, to meet Harry’s earnest expression head on. 

 

And… that is the  _ entire problem _ .

 

Louis does know that Harry would probably figure out a way to fly to Mars if she knew it would help Louis. It stopped astounding her a long time ago, the lengths that Harry would go to make her friends happy. Last December, she’d even cycled over to Niall’s in the dead of night with a head torch precariously strapped to her handlebars to heat up some soup after endless complaints about her cold on the group chat. At her core, Harry is an extraordinarily kind person. She’s endlessly warm with bright smiles and a voice like honey.Which is exactly why she can’t fake date Harry - she can’t pretend to fancy someone she already halfway does. 

 

It would be entirely too messy.

 

But then again, this is the perfect and possibly only opportunity to meet the band that absolutely changed her life. Because Little Mix don’t have a massive audience, they hardly ever do tours - and if they do they can scarcely afford to book out a few small venues to do the standard Manchester, Cardiff and London as it is. 

 

And it wouldn’t just be a concert, she’d get to speak to them and probably embarrass herself as she verbalised a horrible jumble of what she’s tweeted over the years. When she thinks about what she’d say to them, how she’d thank them, her veins go all fizzy in anticipation. 

 

They really did help her, although maybe telling Leigh-Anne that she was her first proper celebrity crush and by association, her lesbian awakening, might not be the best idea. 

 

She can still remember the first interview of theirs that she watched, one from the radio station of the university they all attended. Their faces were barely distinguishable from the dark background, the camera quality was shitty and from the looks of the youtube channel, the idea of filming their broadcasts was still very much a work in progress. But the way they spoke about their lyrics and Jesy’s infamous rare drumstick collection hooked twelve-year-old Louis in, and she hasn’t looked back since.

 

It really is a once in a lifetime opportunity to embarrass herself in front of her favourite band. But it’d also be a once in a lifetime opportunity to date Harry. 

 

If she was to date Harry, she wouldn’t want it to be a one-time thing. She’s positive she couldn’t go back to normal after she had a taste of what it would be like to play the happy couple. Just the thought of spending a few days with Harry’s laughs and smiles and mischief all for herself for it to be taken away in a flash has her stomach churning with unease. It’s been tricky, forcing herself not to crush on Harry for the seven years they’ve been friends, but it’s possible this trip would undo all her hard work. 

 

So, she smiles at Harry, doesn’t let her eyes stray to her lip gloss, and denies her offer. 

 

“Don’t worry, Haz. It was a dumb idea anyway.” Though she tries to keep it out, she can still hear the poorly concealed disappointment in her own voice. 

 

She fishes in her bag for her wallet and jumps up from the table, bounding in the direction of food. The tug on her heart at the flash of hurt in Harry’s eyes feels an awful lot like guilt.

  
  
  
  


Louis’ mostly forgotten about the whole idea by the time sixth period rolls around and she slumps into English Lit, practically collapsing into her seat next to Harry. She knows she only has herself to blame for her exhaustion - she is the one who decided to put Little Mix on post notifications when she knew full well they tended to release big news at midnight, after all. 

 

She rummages into her bag to tug out her notebook and locate one of the biros she keeps loose in the bottom of her bag. As she’s scribbling into the corner of a page, unsuccessfully trying to kickstart the ink of the third biro she’s managed to find, she realises that Harry is unusually quiet next to her.

 

Furrowing her eyes at her friend, she nudges her ankle with her foot. 

 

“Harry.”

 

“What.” She turns to Louis, with a flat face. Louis frowns. 

 

“What’s up with you?”

 

“I don’t know, Louis. What  _ is  _ up with me?”

 

At the front of the classroom, their teacher clears her throat and grabs her battered copy of  _ The Merchant of Venice,  _ waving it around animatedly as she speaks.

 

“What’s this about, H?” Louis leans over and lowers her voice to a hiss. Harry stubbornly whips out a fountain pen and begins making neat notes. 

 

Louis wracks her brain as she rubs her eyes, trying to work out what could have brought this on. Fuck, she’s too tired for this. Wait.

 

“Harry, is this about the Little Mix thing?”

 

Harry frowns, her nose scrunching up cutely. 

 

Bingo.

 

“Harry, it was very kind of you to offer, but we both know I’d make a tit of myself if I actually met them. It’s probably for the best that I’m single. Finally, something good has come of my perpetual loneliness,” she says, her tone falling just short of a joke.

 

At the last sentence, Harry turns swiftly to Louis, the upset in her eyes turning sharply into something gently empathetic at her tone. 

 

“Lou, you don’t have to make it sound less than it is. I know how important they are to you. I just…”

 

“Styles! Tomlinson!” Their teacher’s voice cuts sharply through their whispering and they mutter sheepish apologies. Louis looks down at her notebook. The biro has finally started working. Third time’s the charm, she figures.

 

They enjoy the companionable silence when they finally walk out of the classroom, slowly making their way through the waist-high sea of year sevens. 

 

Once they eventually make it out onto the pavement outside the school, Harry looks at Louis, determined. 

 

“Why didn’t you ask me to be your fake girlfriend?” 

 

Dread pools in Louis’ stomach like something sickly as Harry barrels on. 

 

“ - I mean, is it because I like girls too? Did you think that would make it weirder or something? I’d never want to make you uncomfortable.” She cuts herself off and looks at her feet as she walks, blushing suddenly. “You know I’d never make you uncomfortable on purpose, right?” 

 

Louis feels the way her face instinctively collapses at Harry’s obvious shame before she can school it into something more collected. Her hand travels out without thought to soothe over Harry’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. Harry clearly remains embarrassed as she somehow presses her chin further into her chest, closing in on herself.

 

“Harry, love.” She makes her voice sink into something soft. “Harry, babe, look at me.”

 

Harry shyly peeks up at her, eyes catching on where Louis’ hand is rubbing circles on her shoulder. Louis drops her hand like it’s hot, leaving it hovering in the air between them awkwardly. 

 

“You could never make me feel uncomfortable, okay? I need you to know that, Harry. Nothing you could do would make me uncomfortable.” 

 

For a moment their eyes lock in mutual sincerity, as the kind of understanding that can only be shared by two people who grew up with the same locker room fears passes between them. 

 

Then Harry quirks her mouth up in the way that Louis knows means she’s spotted something in the words. 

 

“You sure, Lou?  _ Nothing _ I could do would make you uncomfortable?” She wiggles her eyebrows stupidly. 

 

Louis squarks and swats her arm in horror.

 

“Harriet! What is that even supposed to mean?!”

 

The girls both dissolve into laughter, and for a couple of days, the fake girlfriend issue is forgotten. 

  
  
  


It arises again several days later when Harry is curled up next to Louis on the sofa. It’s Friday film night in Louis’ house, which means she’s babysitting her sisters while her mum is out with some friends from work.

 

Lottie’s just gone up to bed, so Louis is alone with Harry in the dark of the living room while the selection screen of Bridget Jones’ Diary plays on a loop in the background. They’re both bone tired from a week at sixth form, so they’re content with the small game they’ve come up for themselves. The game involves Harry lazing on her back with her mouth wide open, while Louis eats the rest of the popcorn, occasionally coming across an unpopped kernel, which she attempts to chuck in Harry’s mouth to make her choke. Every now and again, Harry will sit up making a strangled choking noise, which will set Louis off laughing. This, in turn, coaxes an explosive snort of laughter of Harry, which then triggers another fit of giggles from Louis. 

 

They’re on about the fifth rotation of the game when Harry suddenly jolts up without making a sound at all. Louis peers at her with confusion as she begins to pat around on the sofa cushions looking for her phone. 

 

Louis busies herself with launching kernels at the side of her face instead. 

 

Eventually, Harry flaps her hand around to deflect the popcorn and huffs impatiently as flicks an annoyed glare towards Louis. 

 

“Lou, did you know that the applications for the Little Mix thing end at midnight?”

 

“No.”  _ Yes _ . Of course she knew. What a stupid question. 

 

“Well…”  

 

“Well, what?” Harry begins to twiddle the rings on her left index finger - one of her distinct habits. This one in particular usually means she’s about to put forward an idea. An idea which is likely going to be reckless.

 

“Well… I know you said that you wanted to drop it.” She didn’t  _ exactly  _ say that. “But the offer still stands. I know how much they mean to you.”

 

Sometimes Louis just can’t believe how sweet Harry is. It really is why she’s Louis’ favourite. Not only is she unbearably, disarmingly, pretty - even now, when she’s covered in popcorn kernels with dried drool on the side of her face from when she drifted off somewhere between Hugh Grant rowing a boat and Hugh Grant being beaten up by Colin Firth, - she’s also the most thoughtful and kind person Louis’ ever met.

 

“Don’t worry, love,” Louis sighs out, squeezing a hand around Harry’s calf, “You have to write some essay about your -” she pulls her hands away to make exaggerated air quotes “- ‘Love Story’.” 

 

Harry watches Louis carefully as if scanning for a reaction. 

 

“What.” Louis deadpans.

 

“What would you say if I told you I’ve already got something typed up?”

 

“Do you already have something typed up?”

 

“Yes.” 

 

“Can I read it?”

 

“No.” 

 

“No?” Louis asks incredulously. “You don’t expect me to let you sign our lives away without knowing what you’ve said, do you?”

  
Harry rolls her eyes like Louis is being the unreasonable one. Which she’s not! She’s just only realised now that she never read the terms and conditions when she first devoured the information at arse o'clock after being rudely awoken by twitter. And if she knows Harry at all, she definitely hasn’t read them either. 

 

Harry waggles her phone about in front of Louis’ face.

 

“I wrote it on my notes app this morning in that free you all abandon me in. I promise it is just the right amount of soppy. Just what they’ll be looking for. You will be  _ guaranteed _ to meet your idols. I promise, Lou.” 

 

“You really shouldn’t make promises about things you have no control over.” Louis sinks back into the sofa, tugging a cushion over her eyes. “What’s the time now?”

 

“Eleven forty-six.”

 

“Okay. Okay, so we have fifteen minutes.”

 

“Technically fourteen.”

 

“ _ Harry.” _

 

“Okay. Yes, sorry. Fifteen minutes.”

 

“And you’d be a great fake girlfriend, I don’t doubt you. Not with all your…” She makes a vague gesture at Harry’s general demeanour. “...Harry-ness.” 

 

Harry nods.

 

“The best,” she says solemnly. 

 

“Okay.” 

  
Harry perks up, grinning at Louis. 

 

“Okay?”

 

“Yeah, okay. What the fuck? Let’s do it, fake girlfriend.” 

 

Harry shoots Louis a sly smile as she taps out send on her mail app, and Louis tells herself that the butterflies are only about the band.

  
  


Days pass, and then eventually so do weeks, and Louis finds herself forgetting about the whole competition. 

 

The whirlpool of A levels, UCAS and coursework suck them all in. They all wrap themselves up in deadlines and all-nighters, trying to remember how they coped with the stress of GCSEs only two years ago. 

 

Louis pours herself into the climbing workload, holing herself up in the library with the cafeteria’s poor excuse for coffee practically on an IV. For the most part, her easy friendship with Harry goes back to what it was before what she’s dubbed The Incident. She still acts like she’s absolutely on board with Harry’s affectionate nature and tries not to let her eyes linger too long when she worries her bottom lip between her thumb and forefinger. 

 

Of all of the little habits Harry seems to have picked up with the mounting deadlines, the ones that leave her lips red and pouting are the ones that try Louis’ patience the most.  

 

It’s a Friday, and Louis is sat in her usual seat with Harry’s warmth radiating from one side and Liam’s stress from the other. Niall and Zayn are spread over their history coursework, both giggling over something that Zayn is conjuring up with a biro in her planner. Louis rolls her eyes; their deadline is soon and they both seem to have fallen face first into complete delirium. 

 

Outside the cafeteria, it’s dim and rainy - the weather living up to the standards of a dreary British November. The amount of times that Niall has made a pathetic fallacy joke this week is extortionate, so Louis bites her tongue when she goes to comment on the puddles in the bottom of her vans. Her head already hurts from the repetitive rereading of her personal statement, anyway. 

 

Harry has just triumphantly retrieved a small battered bottle of purple nail polish from the bottom of her bag, so she holds off on her complaints her head as well. 

 

In the midst of giggles, Niall suddenly perks up, tucks some fluffy blonde hair behind her headband and pierces Louis with a sharp look, like she just forgot her keys. 

 

“Hey Lou, weren’t Little Mix going to email the winners of that music video thing today?”

 

“I don’t know,” Louis pauses, “I don’t even know what day it is today if I’m completely honest”

 

Zayn pipes up, eyes not leaving her masterpiece, pen wiggling. “It’s the twentieth.”

 

“Oh. Then yeah, I guess,” Louis shrugs, “I’d kind of forgotten all about it. School’s killing me.”

 

Louis also realises at that moment that she and Harry had also forgotten to tell the others they’d applied. Or at least, Louis hasn’t told anyone. Harry has the habit of telling everyone everything about her day in her meandering voice if they’d listen, so there’s always the possibility that she’s already spilled. 

 

Louis looks over at Harry, who is currently looking very concentrated on painting her right pinky. Louis considers the purple and decides that it’s better than the yellow she was sporting last week. 

 

Louis also decides that she wants to know why Harry hasn’t said anything about whether they got into the competition or not. Apparently, they were going to email either way, with a small discount off their merch store for the runners-up. 

 

“Haz.”

 

“Hmmm?” Harry barely glances up from her nails.

 

“Did you get an email back today?”

 

“Oh!” Harry looks up, the image of a deer in the headlights. “Uh - yeah. Yes. I got an email.” 

 

Louis narrows her eyes.

 

“What’d it say?”

 

“Um.”

 

“Harry, it’s okay if we didn’t get in,” Louis huffs a laugh out fondly, “I wasn’t expecting to, you know that, babe.”

 

“No, uh. We got in.”  

 

The admission is mumbled so quietly it barely sounds like anything at all.

 

What?

 

“What?” Louis breathes.

 

“We got in, Lou.”

 

Harry quirks up a smile which Louis can instinctively tell is slightly strained from the anxious way she searches Louis’ face with her eyes. But selfishly, Louis isn’t feeling too concerned with the exact way Harry’s smile forms right now. 

 

Holy fuck.

  
They got in.

 

“Holy fuck.” Louis stares at Harry. “We got in.”

 

“You _ applied?”  _ Liam has her maternal instinct face on, and Louis almost feels bad for contributing to the worries currently taking up Liam’s head.

 

“They didn’t just apply, Li! They got  _ in! _ ” Niall sounds fit to burst, and the way she leans eagerly forward in her seat makes Louis half wonder if she is going to try and tag along for the trip too. Try to hide away in their backpacks and make out like she’s their love child or something. 

 

Niall buzzes from across the table, seemingly second-hand giddy from the excitement that is so far detached from her own coursework heavy life. Louis doesn’t blame her, her stomach is in wraps, and only some of it from the suddenly daunting prospect of having to pretend to be Harry’s girlfriend for the whole debacle.

 

Harry.

 

Harry is still worrying a lip and gazing at Louis in a way that strikes her as apologetic. Louis squints.

 

“What’s wrong, love?” She pitches her voice low, so that the others can’t hear. 

 

Harry lifts a freshly dried hand to the back of her neck, twiddling the hairs there nervously. 

 

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” At her mumbled voice, Louis twists in her seat to look at her properly, arching an eyebrow in a question. Harry takes this prompt with a shrug in her shoulders. “Like, I know you said to start with - like, this was your idea but…” Harry sighs. “You seemed kind of uncertain about doing this with me. You can back out, I get it.”

 

“Harriet Styles -”

 

“Not my name, Lou,” Harry interrupts good-naturedly. 

 

“- if you think that I am going to back out of the greatest opportunity that has ever presented itself to me to meet my favourite band, you are sorely mistaken.”

 

Harry smiles into her fist, and Louis is overcome by the urge, not for the first time, to press kisses into the apples of her cheeks. 

 

“Okay.” 

 

Her voice is soft. 

  
  


Little Mix had arranged it so that the shoot would take place in February half term, so it all feels like a sort of distant daydream, right up until they’re on a train down to St Pancras Station. They managed to nab four seats around a table, and Louis is stretched out languidly, her feet nestled in the seat next to Harry. Harry has been reading a book for the past hour that she insisted was more important than listening to Louis blabber on about the fields that they pass on the way down. With the way that she’s wetting her thumb absently to turn the page, Louis is finding it exceptionally hard to tamp down irrational bouts of jealousy over an inanimate object. 

 

As Harry has been reading, Louis has been watching her read. Her hair is twirled up in a bun, a hairstyle of hers that always has Louis’ eyes darting about the pretty loose strands nervously, as if Harry will look up and know, suddenly, how badly Louis wants to be a loose strand of her hair, so she too can brush up against her neck daintily.  

 

As well as her hair, her neck is also adorned with several mismatched necklaces and she is sporting two pairs of dangling earrings - from both her firsts and her seconds. Louis is certain that just the fact that they haven’t tangled together is proof that Harry must be at least a tiny bit magic. 

 

If she was magic, it would, if nothing else, explain why Harry likes to dress like a witch that only shops at charity shops. Her style is distinct, to say the least. 

 

A meandering and mechanical voice suddenly interrupts the quiet, letting them know the next stop and it seems to startle Harry out of her literature induced daze. With a furrowed brow, she dog-ears the page she’s on and sets the book down on the plastic table between them. 

 

“So.” 

 

Her voice is decisive and Louis has to ignore the thrill that runs up her spine at the tone, instead fixing her with a raised brow. 

 

“So?”

 

“How are we going to do this, then?” As she speaks, she rises and stands on her tiptoes, rifling through her backpack on the overhead. “Like, it’s probably important to set some ground rules, right? That’s a sensible - aha!” She returns to her seat triumphantly, pen and notebook in hand.

 

With the book angled away from Louis, she rifles through the pages until she reaches a clean spread. She presses the sides of her notebook down so with one hand so that it’s effectively flat on the table and reaches up to her hair with the other.

 

Her hand comes back down with a biro in tow and she begins scribbling across the top of the page:  _ Haz and Lou’s Dating Ground Rules.  _

 

Louis scowls.

“Hey! How come your name is first?”

 

“Because I’ve got the pen,” she says, waggling the biro tauntingly under Louis’ nose. “See? It pays to be organised sometimes.”

 

“Right, because keeping a pen in your hair is something organised people do.” 

 

Harry makes to kick at her under the table but Louis quickly tugs her legs and tucks them up under herself. 

 

“Why do we need rules anyway? Was kind of just planning on winging it myself, to be honest Haz.” 

 

Louis doesn’t exactly want to tell Harry that the idea of them making  _ rules  _ make everything seem far too real, has her stomach tripping over itself in a rush to make knots. She doesn’t  _ want _ to plan out the details of her decidedly fake relationship with Harry because as far as she’s concerned, it’s perfectly reasonable to fall into the ease of a conjob without any prior discussion. That way, she was hoping, Harry might realise how natural their love is and never want to stop pretending. 

 

Harry clearly disagrees, her eye roll bordering on impressive.

 

“We need rules so that we don’t make each other uncomfortable, Lou. You know, consent and all that, yeah? This needs to be believable but I don’t think either of us are expecting to be snogging all over the place, are we?”

 

_ Snogging. _

 

Fuck. Louis hadn’t even considered  _ snogging _ . 

 

Maybe rules were a good idea. 

 

“ - so maybe we could say pecks on the cheeks as greetings or something - Lou? Lou, are you even listening to me?”

 

“Hmm? Yeah, yeah I’m listening.” 

 

“Right.” Harry narrows her eyes in wariness. “So as I was saying, we need to have a little PDA as to not be suspicious, so just pecks on the cheek as a greeting and goodbye should be enough. Is that good with you?”

 

With Harry’s questioning eyes on her, Louis suddenly realises what she’s facing. This is going to be a whole weekend of doing cute shit with Harry. Harry, who she is maybe possibly very much a little bit in love with, despite whatever little lies she tells herself so that she can cope on the daily. Cute shit, like kissing her on the cheek and maybe holding her hand and not having to force her lips together so that she doesn’t blurt out awfully telling compliments about the way her hands curl around her coffee cup. But she’s doing this so she can become best mates with her favourite band. 

 

It’s fine. It’s for a greater good. She’s going to be fine.  

 

“Yeah, yeah, that sounds great to me, Haz.” She shoots her an extra sunny grin to make up for her wandering mind. 

  
  


She is not going to be fine. 

 

Harry has drawn out their rules, which turned out to be somewhat of a contract after Harry declared that they should finish it off with their signatures at the bottom. As she lent across the table, Harry’s biro in hand and the scent of her vanilla conditioner crowding her senses, she couldn’t help but feel as though she’d signed her life away. 

 

_ Haz and Lou’s Dating Ground Rules.  _

 

 

  * __Greet each other with a kiss on the cheek at least twice a day.__



 

 

Louis had recommended that slight limitation - she only argued that if they went around peppering each other with kisses all the time, they might just end up looking a little weird. 

 

  1. _Check with each other before anything majorly affectionate._



 

This was Harry’s idea, and the insinuation that Harry might want to do something “majorly affectionate” in any circumstance has Louis’ mind running raggard with possibility. 

 

  1. _Play up cute banter._



 

Both of them agreed that that would be easy - their friendship was already built on light teasing, all they had to do was scatter in some pet names and they’d be good to go. 

 

They had debated making more rules, but they decided against it, figuring that the weekend was supposed to be fun and relaxing. If they added too many restrictions, they ran the risk of making the whole experience into something tightly wound. Harry said that she had made them seem like they had been together for a long time in her little love essay, so it would have been suspicious if their interactions appeared strained for any reason.

 

After they had signed their makeshift contract, Harry had fished out another pen from her bag - this one a freebie from a university open day - and they had sat in companionable silence, doodling around the margins and decorating it. 

 

Louis is in the middle of adding a bumblebee to the garden of flowers adorning her side of the paper, when the tannoy announces that their stop is next. 

 

Louis hadn’t been too much involved with the planning process - as it was Harry who applied, she had been the one exchanging emails with Little Mix’s management - but she had gathered that there was to be someone with a sign to greet them at the station. 

 

“I think we should hold hands as we go over,” mumbles Harry, stuffing the array of items that had made their way out of her luggage back in her bags. 

 

“Yeah.” Louis inhales sharply and quietly. “Good idea.”

 

Once her array of tote bags have been looped under her arms, she offers a hand to Louis who takes it in hers. For a moment, she allows herself to catalogue her choice of nail polish for the weekend - a shiny baby pink which has Louis’ heart seizing up from the sweetness of it all. 

 

As soon as they start walking off the train, Louis feels as if nothing matters apart from the slender hand encasing hers. They have held hands before, sure, but it was always something of a joke. Just a means to tug each other over to something of interest, or part of a larger charade, complete with skipping and obnoxious singing. This is different. 

 

It’s the implication, Louis decides, as her skin sings to life under Harry’s careful touch.  They walk hand in hand towards the guy holding out a sign proclaiming  _ Styles!  _ and this implication has Louis’ mind whirring. This guy thinks they are together. To him, their hands together isn’t a friendly gesture, an elaborate joke, as it always had been. To him, it says togetherness, love, maybe even  _ ownership.  _ Louis twists her hand in Harry’s so that her fingers fit in between Harry’s longer ones and tightens her grip.

 

She suddenly wants Harry to know what this means to her. Louis desperately wants Harry to be hers. The corner of her mouth twitches involuntarily into the ghost of a smirk, out of sight of Harry, who is slightly ahead of her, tugging her along. The guy is going to see how pretty Harry is, and look at their hands intertwined,  and think that Harry is hers. 

 

But Harry isn’t hers. This is just a rouse. Louis needs to remember that nothing was going to come of this.    
  
The guy helps them into a taxi outside the station, which winds through the streets spreading out across London. When they arrive at the hotel they’ll be staying at for the next few nights, they can’t help but fall into giggles as their eyes meet. Nothing about this felt real, and the dreamlike quality is kept up by the ridiculously elaborate lobby.    
  
“Fucking hell Haz, look up,” she rises on her tip toes to hiss into Harry’s ear, “There’s a bloody chandelier!”    
  
They both crane their necks to take a peek, and fall into each other as they do so, giddy and gleeful.

 

With Harry’s sweet peals of laughter at her side, she can’t help but get lost in her orbit. Louis has always been struck by Harry’s magnetism. 

 

They float dreamily up to their hotel room. Harry’s dazed murmurings accompany them on their way, the soft quality of her voice coupled with her absent fiddlings with Louis’ fingers where their hands rest together.

 

The dream continues on, sweet and silky until they get to the room. 

 

“Oh shit.” Louis looks around the room and then shoots an apologetic glance at Harry. “One bed.”

 

But Harry is already dumping her bags down on the duvet and flopping down after them. 

 

“Don’t worry Lou,” she grins at her from where she is nestled amongst her tote bags. “We’ve shared my bed millions of times before - and that’s a single! We’ll have loads of space. ‘S Okay.” 

 

Louis decides it’s best not to mention that sleeping practically on top of Harry in her creaky single bed is not exactly a comforting image, but rather one that suddenly reminds her of all the moments they’ve woken up spooning with her leg tucked up between Harry’s soft thighs. It’s half a relief that their bed here looks to be a king - or a least a double - they might even have enough room to sleep comfortably apart from each other. 

 

But then Louis thinks again of the implication of the whole debacle they’ve got themselves in. For everyone else, they’re a teenage couple sharing a double bed in a hotel. She realises with a hot jolt that for most couples that still live at home, like her and Harry, this is like the holy grail of opportunities. 

 

Louis thinks of the man that led them to the hotel, the man whose eyes flicked to their hands between them when he first greeted them and Harry’s cheerful small talk. 

 

Not for the first time, Louis mourns the fact that she won’t be spending the trip with a real girlfriend. Not that she doesn’t want to spend it with Harry. Not that at all. Rather, she wants to  _ spend it with Harry.  _ Maybe too much. If nothing else, it would almost be fitting if Little Mix were to inadvertently be the cause of her losing her lesbian virginity, as well as the cause of her lesbian awakening. Her life would have come full circle, in a neat little lesbian way. 

 

On the bed, Harry snorts at something on her phone.

 

Louis smiles. Neat little lesbian way indeed. 

  
  


“You nervous?”

 

Harry leans down to whisper in her ear as they walk hand in hand. While they hadn’t decided on holding hands as one of their rules, Louis had still sought out Harry’s hand like a moth to a flame. 

 

In the lobby, the members of Little Mix were waiting to meet all the couples for the videos early on so that they could get a feel for dynamics. Her and Harry’s train got in a little later than the others’ so they had just missed the mass of people, even though Harry says she reckons there’s only about three or four couples other than them. It’s completely surreal that the four women that have shaped her life are in the same building as her, let alone are probably going to become her friends over the next few days. Walking these winding corridors knowing that she’s about to meet her idols has her insides feeling loose in her body, and she wonders how she ever thought she could do this with anyone other than Harry. 

 

“Kinda,” she whispers back, squeezing Harry’s hand. “It’ll be fine, yeah?”

 

“Course.” Harry squeezes her hand right back. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this so far! i know it's pretty short as it stands, so let me know in the comments or on tumblr whether you'd be interested in me writing the rest of it! maybe a demand will give me motivation haha
> 
> I'm on tumblr  
> [here](http://greenhousegf.tumblr.com/)  
> [rebloggable fic post here](http://greenhousegf.tumblr.com/post/182315554094/far-away-find-us-in-the-future-louis-has-the)


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